The event draws inspiration from Crochet Coral Reef by Christine and Margaret Wertheim, the work presented at the Venice Biennial in 2019. A cross between sculpture and botanical model, created by more than ten thousand participants who contributed to the creation of an enormous series of crocheted coral reefs.
Members of the public will have the opportunity to experiment with the technique of crochet under the guidance of Martina Motta, a researcher and professor of knitting design, and listening to Giovanni Chimienti a researcher from the department of Biology at the University of Bari, who led a research expedition to study black coral in the Adriatic Sea, shedding light on still little-understood deep-sea environments that are already at grave risk.

Martina Motta is research associate and professor at the department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Here, she studies and teaches aspects of contemporary fashion, knitting design and fabric design, working on the blending of traditional manual techniques with advanced technology, on the evolution of the digital representation of textile products, and on the exploitation of sustainable design, processes and products in this specific sector of industry.

Giovanni Chimienti is a researcher in Zooology at the University of Bari and National Geographic Explorer. His studies focus on coral and on deep sea environments. He collaborates with the FAO as an expert in deep-sea coral.
Chimenti’s studies have earned him recognition from the Italian Society of Marine Biology, from the Italian Zoological Union, from the National Academy Dei Lincei, from the Deep-Sea Biology Society, and from Albert II, Prince of Monaco.

The event, part of the programme Ogni volta unica la fine del mondo, is part of the itinerary Alleanze multispecie, which studies collective forms of examining our position in the world, posing the question of whether the ideas that take form as we interact in symbiosis with other species can generate a hybrid aspect capable of repairing the fracture between Nature and Culture that has characterised the Anthropocene.